


Blackout

by Chellendora



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Fanfiction, Fluff, One-Shot, Reader-Insert, Romance, historical fiction - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-18
Updated: 2012-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-31 22:11:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chellendora/pseuds/Chellendora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You reflect on the violent circumstances that led to your meeting with the Doctor.<br/>Reader/10!Doctor</p><p>Prompt: "You're Jack the Ripper? I seriously don't have time for this."<br/>For: Mozart</p><p>[Written for the "Haunted and Magical" Fic Trade, October 2012]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blackout

**“Blackout”**

It had been an entire year since the Doctor stepped into your life, and it couldn’t have been a more different one. Not just because you had seen galaxies and worlds beyond the scope of your previously limited imagination, but because of the person you had become in such a short time.

Your eyes darkened as you gazed from the viewing window that was somewhere, hell if you knew, on the TARDIS. A beautiful nebula of interwoven purple and pink loomed before you, stretching across the sky until the tendrils curled like fingers toward further stars. You pressed your fingers to the glass as though you thought you could touch it. But you knew it felt like passing through a fog, nothing so special. 

As the TARDIS flew through time and space to some new unknown adventure you always watched the progress from the giant bay window. You could sit on a comfy window seat for hours, curled up under a fleece throw that had been given to the Doctor as a gift in Sixteenth Century Scotland. This time as you were watching, you saw five newborn stars blink into existence. Their light was intense, bright and beautiful. But as quickly as they came, they dimmed. You could still see the specific pinpricks, slightly larger in the sky than the others.

Passing your hand over them you whispered a name for each star, “Mary Ann...Annie...Elizabeth...Catherine...Mary Jane...” A few tears fell silently over your cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

_Your body shook violently, but you weren’t cold. You rubbed at your arms, smearing the blood from your palms along the once unblemished skin. You choked out a hiccupping sob, heard the angry shout of men and the crackle of burning torches. You ran._

Your hand against the glass gripped into a fist.

_Everything was a blur. You had been having dinner with the Nichols. Your family had known them for years; both were old families in Whitechapel District. Next thing you knew Mary Ann was dead beneath you, and you were covered in warm blood, not a drop of it yours..._

Jerkily, you turned from the window and curled up tighter in the throw as the memories flooded into your mind. Unbidden, unstoppable, they forced themselves into every crevice, sought out every shred of happiness you had felt in the past year and seized upon it. Strangling it, smothering it, it diminished until you wondered if it had ever really been there at all.

_It didn’t stop there. Annie screamed louder than the others, Catherine prayed to God to save her...and to save you. As you slit Elizabeth’s throat her last word gurgled was “My son...” And with no shred of pity, you had slowly, shallowly ran your knife along Mary Jane’s slender neck. Each time you awoke in a different place, usually some dark, dank cubby in the woods, covered in blood that was not yours, shaking and retching with a sickness that seemed to spin in your head, not your stomach._

_You ran. You ran and ran and ran, but you were only a girl; a girl who knew nothing of the world outside Whitechapel, outside of England. You had never even been to Ireland or Scotland._

How many people had you killed? You remembered way more blackouts than you did life, or so it seemed sometimes. You never knew when one was coming on, and you didn’t know what happened when they had. Flashes of scenes from those times returned to you in your nightmares, squeezing the joy from your heart and plaguing your mind. 

But sometimes, the nightmares turned into dreams.

_You were hiding beneath the bridge in Whitechapel that lead to the church. A mob of angry men were trying to find the murderer of one of their village daughters. It was the year 1888. How long had you been killing? Blood ran down your arms in rivulets, mixed with your tears and river water._

_Suddenly, you heard a sound. You could only describe it as “whooping” and strange. You had never heard anything like it before, even when the church bells were starting to warp and crack. You stood to your feet, backing up against the stone wall of the bridge as the air before you began to wobble and shift, becoming almost solid and then dissipating into mist. Slowly, the air took shape to form a giant, blue box that you had never before seen in your life. It said “POLICE” and that was enough warning for you._

_Turning quickly, you ran, but didn’t get far. Someone caught your wrist._

_You yelped, yanking your body around to jerk your wrist from the man, but slipped on the wet grass and fell on your behind. You looked up at him pitifully, your wet hair hanging into your face in clumps of grass and blood. Your dress was filthy and ripped, dyed red. You could feel how large and round your eyes were, ready to pop from your head, as you looked up at the man._

_He was so strange. His hair was short and spiked, he wore a pair of spectacles unlike any you had seen the wise men wearing in church, and his clothing was beyond bizarre. It was fitted to him, dark blue with thin white stripes, and a material you couldn’t place. Such tailoring could only come from London or Paris, you assumed. You didn’t know, you had never left Whitechapel._

_Until today._

_The way he looked at you stemmed any flight response your body had felt. He looked compassionate, and genuinely worried. Fear gripped your heart and your mind screamed, “Get away from him!”_

_You ran again. He chased you._

_“Wait! I’m the Doctor! Let me help you!”_

_“No! Stay away from me! I’m dangerous!” you wailed back over your shoulder and crashed into the river. You struggled across, but halfway the current grabbed your legs and yanked you under. The world became spinning, swirling, and nauseating. You couldn’t see, you couldn’t breathe. Water filled your lungs when you opened your mouth to scream. Which way was up? You struggled in one direction and came in contact with the bottom. You began to panic, to blackout..._

_And then suddenly you were lifted from the water with strong arms and returned to the living world. You sputtered and vomited water from your lungs while someone rubbed your back and covered you with a blanket._

_Then you heard the men again, and so did your rescuer, because you were lifted and whisked away before you could protest._

And that’s how you had ended up on the TARDIS. You still remembered when the Doctor had found out what you had done. He had knelt in front of you on this very window seat, held both your hands and looked right into your eyes, so that you could do nothing else but believe and be comforted by every word he said.

_“You may be Jack the Ripper - bloody, if I’ll ever get used to you being a woman - but you’re not evil.” You had burst into tears. You had been hunted like an animal; no one had tried to speak to you before. “I can help you.”_

_With a pathetic whisper of a thank you, the Doctor had stood and swirled around, holding his hand out to you to help you up. “So, Miss Jacqueline, where do you want to go first? All of time and space is open to you.”_

Feeling tremendously better, you left the observatory and returned to the TARDIS’s flight dais. The Doctor was pretending to study a screen; he was actually listening as you approached, the throw still around your shoulders. He turned with a huge smile, but it faltered when he saw the tear stains on your face. Immediately you were gathered to him in a giant bear hug. You always marveled at how you could feel completely enveloped against such a lanky man.

“I’m okay,” you said before he could ask. “I just wanted to tell you thank you, again.”

“You tell me a hundred times a day,” he said with a wide smile. His arms tightened and you buried your face into the crook of his neck.

“Well, today is particularly important.”

It had been 365 days since your last blackout, and you knew it was because you had met the Doctor.

* * *

**Well, if you do your research you’ll find out about the “Canonical Five,” or the five definite murders by Jack the Ripper who was never identified, and never caught. I hope this isn’t too depressing for the season...Just the kind of mood I’ve been in lately.**


End file.
